Most Faithful
by whirlwinds of watercolours
Summary: Bellatrix Lestrange was the Dark Lord's most faithful servant; there was no doubt about that.


**Summary: Bellatrix Lestrange was the Dark Lord's most faithful servant; there was no doubt about that.**

**Rating: T because Bellatrix centric fics can never be a K or K plus**

**Word Count: 763**

**Written for the Ultimate Death Eater Contest, Round Two; Character Diversity Boot Camp; Diagon Alley Challenge: Twilfitt and Tattlings.**

**_Emma Quinn _is no doubt the most awesome beta in the world.**

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Bellatrix Lestrange was the Dark Lord's most faithful servant; there was no doubt about that.

For fourteen years, she had waited patiently inside her dingy cell in Azkaban for the rise of the Dark Lord. It sufficed to say that those long years were the most dreadful ones of her life, for in that small dark cell, time stood still. Every second felt like a minute; every minute, an hour. Fourteen years in there was practically equivalent to more than a century.

However, even after enduring fourteen years of torture and horror in the cold depths of Azkaban, her faith and loyalty to him remained unwavered. Many colleagues had called her foolish and stubborn for wasting her time away in Azkaban when she could have easily avoided imprisonment in Azkaban from torturing the Longbottoms by denying that she was a Death Eater, but despite their snide and crude remarks, she held her head high and spoke to them with the arrogant tone of a true Black.

"No one, _no one_, has the right to judge _me_, the Dark Lord's most faithful servant."

That would usually shut them up.

She was his most dedicated lieutenant, she was sure. While others were living the pampered life of a pureblood during the years of his disappearance, she had been in Azkaban being guarded by Dementors for carrying out a crime in his name. While others pledged their commitment to him monotonously, she had declared hers bursting with pride. While their allegiance remained undecided, she was infinitely loyal to him, and him only.

_"My Lord, it will be my honour to serve you forever!" she cried, bowing low and throwing herself at his feet, kissing the hem of his robes after receiving her Dark Mark at the young age of twenty._

_A cold smile of amusement curved his lipless mouth as he contemplated her words. "Forever? Forever is a long time, my dear Bella."_

Those words had rung, crystal clear, in her mind every day for fourteen years. The promise she had made to her Lord was the only thing that kept her alive and half-sane in that horrid cell in Azkaban; the thought of letting her Lord down was simply unacceptable.

No, simply unacceptable was an understatement. Absolutely preposterous would make a better substitute.

She would not be like those other Death Eaters, the ones who cowered away from their rightful duty. Not like Wormtail, the timid little man who only had the initiative to look for the Dark Lord once he heard of Sirius Black's escape. If she had been him - an idea which she repulsed at, considering his house and his friendship with the blood traitor who helped in the conception of her Lord's biggest threat - she would have gone off in search immediately. Not like Severus Snape, either - the person who claimed to be one of the Muggle-loving fool Dumbledore's most trusted allies in that Order of the Phoenix, yet brought back no useful and only vague information in Death Eater meetings. She would have dug out all the Order of the Phoenix's secrets and told them to the Dark Lord in a heartbeat. Nor Lucius Malfoy, who escaped imprisonment by pretending he was under the Imperius Curse.

She was Bellatrix Lestrange, his most faithful servant.

She would live up to her title, no matter what happened. Failure was not an option for her.

The memory of what happened in the Department of Mysteries still stung like a sharp barb even after all that time. In all her years serving as a Death Eater, that had been the one and only time she failed to please her Lord. The cold fury of his wrath, the harsh disappointment in his tone, would forever be etched in her brain.

She swore to herself that she would not repeat the same mistake. Never again would she be thwarted by a bunch of silly schoolchildren who had no idea what they were up against - she was going to make sure of that for her Lord. The bittersweet taste of victory was almost upon her lips.

Some might have viewed her respect and loyalty for the Dark Lord as a fanatic obsession, but Bellatrix could not have cared less about their gossip and trivial opinion. After all, nothing was ever as it seemed - they had no right to judge her for something they did not understand. At any rate, they did not matter at all; they were inferior in comparison to her.

For she was Bellatrix Lestrange, the Dark Lord's most faithful servant.


End file.
